An Actual Venus Shower & a Mars Shower that Might Have Been

Sarah Lynn's wedding shower was divine.  It was ethereally beautiful on par with the best "Venus" showers.   It all began Friday afternoon when the doorbell rang at our rented house. There stood a woman in a lovely sundress with chin length sleek, dark brown hair holding a fan shaped flower arrangement almost bigger than she was.  

"Hi, I'm Emily.  Are you, Jan? Where can I put this stuff? I've got dishes for twenty, silverware for twenty, three flower arrangements, a miniature bridesmaid bouquet, oh, and I brought my gold chargers for the plates, four choices of table cloths, the extra table, and twenty gold chairs.  I hope you don't mind, but I brought my own personal wine, water and champagne glasses for you to use all weekend.  Plus, if you think of ANYTHING else you need, just let me know.  Oh, don't worry about washing up anything, just rinse it off, and I'll be here to pick it up whenever you say on Monday.  It's so nice to finally meet you.  WOW, what a great house."  She swept by me smiling.

We were off and running. I kept thinking, "At one time in my life, I too had this kind of vivacity and energy.  Is this young woman for real?  She's just too good to be true."   Well, let me tell you, she was not only for real, she was better than real.  All during the wedding shower, Emily, the wife of Jay's best friend, and one of Sarah's bridesmaids anticipated every need and met it.


I knew via a long chain of emails that snaked through the months prior to the wedding weekend, Amy (AKA Best Woman, and she certainly is)  was  El Capitan of the Wedding Shower.  First evidence of her command ability was her superior recruitment.  The doorbell rang at our 'party house' at 8:50 am shower day morning.   Joni, Amy's mother, appeared at the front door as she announced, "I'm here to help Amy, and oh, yes, Bryan (Amy's father) is bringing in the big coolers you're going to need for your other parties."  With a brief hug, she headed for the kitchen rolling up her sleeves, and went to work.  Amy was on her heels.  Suddenly the kitchen was filled with slicing, dicing, rolling, and concocting.  Finally emerging from the kitchen were multiple types of homemade pizzas, freshly made avocado corn salad, fresh fruit salad, as well as meat and cheese platters, puff pastry spinach thingies, and other yummies including Audrey's Famous Sugared Pecans.  I was still sipping coffee.  

Amy had assigned tasks to all the other bridesmaids, and as they arrived they morphed into a well-oiled team.  Here's a picture tutorial of how to prepare for the ultimate wedding shower...on Venus:

After everyone arrives and schmoozes, in a good Venus shower it's time for games:  Meet the toilet paper brides:

EVERY Venus shower worth its salt has the ice breaker game, and "toilet paper bride" is an oldie (meaning we played it when my age group was getting married) but still a winner.  The rules for the people reading this who live on Mars:  Divide into teams, create a bridal gown using only toilet paper and dress one member of the team.  The modern twist:  The MOB (me) and the real Bride (Sarah) played the parts of Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum.  We walked around to the groups as they adorned their brides and gave our analysis and advice vis a vi "Project Runway".  This was most enjoyable as we strolled around saying, "Make it work!"  "It's looking a little costumey." "Love the hand made flower detailing."  "Who was responsible for the overall design?"  Then we chose the victor.   Here's the winner posing with the real Bride to Be

 Pausing to eat some of the delicious food, visit with new friends, and concoct another drink, the ladies resettle and it's time for the main event - gift opening.  As a bride, this is extremely exciting especially if you like being the center of attention.  It's like a Christmas morning you don't have to share with anybody else.  Traditional formation of this event is the 'big circle'.  That's why Emily brought so many extra chairs.

One of the responsibilities of the family of the bride is to deliver unique and meaningful gifts.  Sarah Lynn got hers in spades.  Her new mother and sister-in-law, Shanleigh and Kit, gave her a Louis Vitton purse, her Grandmother gave her a cut glass crystal and silver salad set which she received at her wedding in 1948.  The mother of the bride (me) gave her the 'something old' for her wedding day - the gift of my pearls I received from her Dad on my 10th wedding anniversary.

As a special gift from her family, she received a handmade quilt made with squares sewn by her deceased Grandma Jo.

Another great gift presented in honor of my friendship with MY college roommates was a beautiful peignoir set given by Patti (our remaining roommate) and her daughter Kara

As an invitee of a Venus shower, the expectation is to comment favorably on the gifts as they are opened one by one.  Everyone ALWAYS agrees they have never seen such beautiful gifts.  It's a real challenge to 'up the ante' of this tried and true formula.  Our commander managed to do this.  Amy, asked all the invitees to electronically send her their favorite recipes, pictures and 'stories'.  She lovingly assembled all these contributions into an illustrated cookbook which she published.  Sarah's shower instantly became legendary.

Meanwhile.....on Mars

Wedding showers are bit more casual on this planet.  First, there are no pesky invitations, RSVPs, securing of venues, registries beyond the groom texting the Best Man the preferred line of tools the day before the shower.  On the day of the event, the hosts don't bother with decorations.  After all, what can you do to spruce up a garage?  Chairs don't necessarily have to match, or even be chairs.  Some events use the five gallon bucket to great effect.  It's a chair, it's a beer cooler, it's a waste basket, and for the 'short this month' guest - a gift.  

Generally speaking, refreshments usually consist of several bags of chips, slim jims, and beer.  The keg is traditional, but younger hosts are now buying a variety of microbrews.  The host that chooses the microbrew option is expected to ice down the beer prior to the event.  Classy hosts clean their fishing/hunting coolers before adding the ice and beer.

There are no games played in a Mars wedding shower other than one upmanship in telling lies about women the attendees have known.  In a high toned shower, the bride-to-be is never mentioned in the aforesaid anecdotes.  Sometimes stories are told of the worst possible things that have happened in prior weddings.  Men who have been married the longest relish telling horror stories about marriage.

Of course, there are no pictures from a Mars wedding shower.  No one can imagine why he would want any.  However, there are gifts.  Gifts usually consist of anything that can be bought at AutoZone, Lowe's or Home Depot.  The thoughtful guest texts the Best Man during the one stop shopping to see if there is a requested tool line.  An extra battery pack for the requested tool line is considered a classic gift.  During the gift opening, the father and father-in-law to be of the groom regale the group with gory stories featuring the tools being opened by the groom.  "Opened" is a relative term - it actually means taking the gift out of the plastic bag it was put into at the store.  Eco conscious guests are now requesting paper bags for their gifts.

The shower concludes when the last beer is drunk.          

  

  

          

A Difficult Pack

Packing week is always a bit frustrating, but this week has been a doozy.  I don't think we've ever had to incorporate so many different venues and pack the trailer is such a crazy manner - staging everything in layers.  The kick-off to this traveling season is the wedding.

The wedding.  Lordy, Lordy.  I'm back to wedding insomnia.  I wake up at 4:15 in the morning with lists running through my head.  I have to laugh because people keep saying, "Jan, you know it's not going to be perfect."  Perfect?  Hah.  I'd be thrilled if we could just get the venue to deliver a timeline for the wedding day.  It's going to be non-stop from Friday morning until Sunday night.  My personal 'to do' list is five pages long and GROWING.  Drake and I are hosting several events.  My last word on the wedding is:  If we three Type A's can't pull off this wedding, then nobody can.

We start this trip on a sad note - Tulsa.  Frustration there too.  My Dad is a lost soul; he doesn't recognize me - hasn't for three years, and now he's losing the ability to even respond to small talk.  His body is still going strong.  It's heartbreaking; it's guilt inducing; anger producing.  Nobody should have to live the demented life.  Now, we are on the eve of Sarah's wedding, and neither of my parents will  be there.    As a young child both my parents were enthralled with Sarah.  I think they both felt like she was an unlooked for bonus.  I guess when you wait 15 years to have a child like we did, that's understandable.  It's going to be even harder to 'shake off' the Tulsa blues this time.

Next, comes Hurst.  We have so many friends there.  A legacy from my mother is my ability to connect with people.  She was amazing.  People flocked to her.  As a child, I was somewhat jealous of all the people who seemed to need my mother so much.  I do miss my HEB friends (that's Hurst, Euless, Bedford - the 3 towns between Dallas and Fort Worth), and never more than this year.  I wish the wedding was going to be in Hurst at the church we attended for 20 years.  Sarah, after eight years in Austin, wants her wedding in the town she feels is her Texas home, and I understand that.  Our day and a half in Hurst includes haircuts (that God for Tere), dental appointments (the whole office is filled with friends there too), a trip to the Bedford Farmer's Market where I KNOW I can get vine ripened tomatoes for the special bridesmaid dinner, plus dropping the trailer and bikes.  I'm trying to squeeze in a dutch treat dinner, so I can catch up with everyone.  

Next comes Austin and the Wedding Marathon.  I decided about six months ago the only way I was going to stave off being sad and depressed during the wedding events was to surround myself with my long time friends.  They have all rallied around, and I know their help and support is going to be a major reason I'm going to be able to find the joy in this occasion.  Sarah is marrying a wonderful man, and joining with a lovely family who has been gracious and accepting of Drake and I.  I told Kit (Jay's mom) last year that making a new friend at our age was a real thrill.  I've been working hard trying not to think too much about all the people who won't be at this milestone in our lives.  

OK....when the wedding is over, it's time to go to Connecticut.  Everybody knows that Drake and I are subleasing Sarah and Jay's New Haven apartment and keeping their humongous cat for the summer while they sublet an apartment in the East Village of NYC where they will both be working.  Oh, baby, to be 28/27 years old and living in New York City with enough money to enjoy it.  Now, THAT'S a honeymoon.  Although, technically it's not.  They don't have time to take their 'real honeymoon', so it's been postponed.  

Connecticut is going to have its frustrations.  Like the apartment is 546 square feet.  Like the cat poops enough for three cats, and is prone to upchucking.  The cat is also giant, and I'm sure the cat hair is going to be wafting through the entire apartment all summer long because, wait for it, the apartment has no air conditioning.  That's a good thing and a bad thing.  The bad part is obvious, but the silver lining:  I'm not cooking in Connecticut.  Yea!  I can not tell you how deliriously happy this makes me. Plus, I figure I'll see every movie Hollywood can throw out there this summer.  I also plan to avail myself of all the public library magazines in the air conditioned reading chairs. I'm going to enjoy living in a 375 year old town, yep, they are celebrating 375 - for the arithmetic challenged, that means New Haven has had inhabitants since 1638.  There's going to be a lot of dead people; it's time for some cemetery tours.

First of September it's on to Virginia.  I've been lobbying for this trip for two years.  I love American history. (Oh, by the way, I haven't forgotten I owe you readers a tour of 19th century American women.  Don't worry, I'll get around it it.)  We are thinking about settling into Richmond for about 3 months.  It's our first thought, so we may wind up somewhere else.  Virginia history is all about the founding of the republic, and it was a major battleground of the Civil War.  Going to be lots of places and lots of pictures, and the Smithsonian!!!!!!  

To top off the travel portion of our year, I'm thinking beach.....  We'll see.  I just loved Seal Rock this past year.  Oatmeal just tastes better when it comes with the ocean rolling into the beach.  Lots of nice beaches in the East and the South.  I've been thinking about my parents' old stomping ground:  Gulf Shores.   So far, it's just an idea.

Well, that's it.  I feel better having voiced some of my frustration to my readers.  This has been a difficult year in AZ.  The allergies here are really getting to me.  My first order of business next year is to hit the allergist and get tested for all these new pollens that seem to be laying me low.  Finally, next stop in blogland will be my take on the big wedding.       

It's a One Way Trip

     It's 78,000 and counting.  That's the number of current applications from 120 countries to make the one way trip to colonize Mars.  There are going to be four people chosen to become Martians for the rest of their lives.  When Drake told me about this, it started me thinking about what kind of people choose to leave Earth forever and finish their lives on another planet. 

     My first thought was, "the same kind of people who got on Magellan's ship on August 10, 1519 to sail around a largely unknown world'.  And how about the people who set sail for Jamestown in 1607?  Then we have the first people to blaze the Oregon Trail  in a wagon train west to the Pacific from Missouri in 1836.  When the women and men climbed onto those wagons, it was clearly understood they were leaving their childhood homes, their parents, siblings and friends forever.  Still they went.  I think the people who are applying for the one way trip to Mars are cut from this cloth.  

The Mars expedition shares a lot of commonality with earlier pioneers.   Everybody participating knows this isn't going to be a pleasure cruise.  Water will be so precious for the Mars colonists that none of them will be showering for the rest of their lives on Mars. There are also no guarantees.  The track record of 'first' colonists is not exactly promising.  Ever wonder where the people who settled first in Roanoke,Virginia went?  Heaven would be my guess.

At to the Mars specifics.  A company called Mars One has developed a mission to establish a human colony on Mars by the year 2035.  (Hmm.  I could be around to see this...maybe.)  The first four colonists would land in 2023, followed by successive colonists in groups of four apparently about every two years.  Oh, and there will be a 24/7/365 broadcast back to Earth of the entire enterprise.  I wonder if anyone has really thought THAT through.  Can you imagine?  That broadcast could be a train wreck, or the most compelling soap opera ever.  Remember the movie The Truman Show? 

I am still trying to wrap my head around the type of person who leaves everything familiar - even breathable air, and heads to a different planet.  Of the 78,000 so far, almost 18,000 are Americans, followed by about 10,000 Chinese, then Russians, British, Mexicans and Brazilians.  The company feels they are 'on track' to get the 500,000 applicants they were hoping for.  If you pull up the Mars One web site (http://applicants.mars-one.com/overview/most-viewed/) you can see that the applicant part of the website is being run in a social media formula.  There are pics, favorites, ratings (using the star system), U-Tube videos by the applicants and number of applicant 'hits' are also being tracked.  The company intends to 'broadcast' the selection process for the applicants.

In addition to the social media aspect, there is also merchandise to be bought, press releases to be read, philosophies to be studied, technology to be mastered, and donations to be contributed.  I can't decide if this is the slickest con job ever, or if these are dreamers and daring adventurers. Time will tell.  In the meantime, applications are being accepted through the end of August.       

Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, the color of summer (according to William Carlos Williams)!

Today I was reading the March issue of my favorite magazine, Real Simple.  Don't ask me why I'm fascinated with this magazine.  They have 'features' that just tickle me.  One of my favorites is new uses for ordinary items; this month it was the colander.  (Ok, Ok, I know if I don't tell you, I'll get mail:  outdoor planter, knitting assistant, splatter blocker.)  They also have single pages on what I would term:  fun and useless facts.  So, I'm turning pages and stumble across a page devoted to an analysis of color.

Artists think about color all the time.  Animals (including people) use color to attract mates.  I remember in the 1970's you could match your skin to the colors that compliment it, and we went around saying, "I'm a Winter, or I'm a Spring".  I didn't realize how much time and money marketing executives spend commissioning studies of color from psychologists.  These studies help corporations decide what 'color' they are going to use in their packaging, their advertisements, their signage, the products, and even the paint in their stores.  I discovered certain colors have become associated with certain types of products.  Here we go....

Black:  signature color of 'sophistication'.  Dominates high end make up.

Blue:  since almost everybody likes blue, we equate it with trust and dependability.  Think financial institutions.  Check this - patrons are 15% more likely to return to a store with blue color schemes rather than orange.  Speaking of orange

Orange:  associations with fairness and affordability.  Think Home Depot and Payless.

Burgundy:  connotates rich and refined.  A merlot item will cost more than the same product in white.  Brown is also part of this rich thing.  

Pink:  especially the shade close to bubble gum has a calming effect.  Hmmm.  I've never noticed this in the Barbie aisle.

Red:  Stores like this color, but market analysis indicates consumers associate this with STOP (like the sign), and this color might inhibit spending.

Green:  has become synonymous with ecology/environmentalism.  Canny marketeers use green without making any eco claims.

Violet:  purple reigns in the beauty industry especially in anti-aging products - think royalty; thus we are willing to pay a princely sum for the product

White:  simplicity and purity.  75% of skin care products are packaged in white.  It also stands for modernity and honesty.  Perhaps that's why Apple chose it for their initial products.

Yellow:  evokes energy and increases appetite.  Can you say Golden Arches? 

I thought all this was interesting in kind of an 'oh, yeah, way.  Plus, we all needed a break from American History.  This was recess.  

American Women: Dolls, Drudges, Heroines and Helpmates

I read zillions of books each year, and most pass by with only a momentary notice.  However, I'm reading one now which keeps revealing new gems each day.  It's Gail Collins book, "American Women, 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines".  Here are just a few highlights of what I've gleaned from the book:

Don't emigrate to the New World in the 17th century if you're a woman, even though every colony tried every means to attract woman emigrants.  Your survival rate was dismal.  Here's an example:  Of 6000 emigrants to the Chesapeake Bay area, after a year only 1200 were alive.  The good news is if you are one of the lucky survivors, you could be a full partner with your husband, father, uncle or brother because it took everyone pulling 100% to survive.   The odds were you would outlive your husband and inherit all his property since your children were still minors.  Thus, American women gained unheard of economic clout.

Most women's backs never had any support in the 1600s - most American households had one chair with a back - reserved, of course, for the head of the household. This is where the term 'chairman' comes from.  It only took 300 years for us to change that designation to 'chairperson'.  
  
If you wait until the 18th century to emigrate, survival rates are actually better for American women than in the old country, but, alas, the wide open opportunities for women shut down.  Husbands are no longer dying quite so young, and properties instead of passing into the hands of surviving wives are passing directly to grown children.  Women are relegated back to the kitchen from the fields, the woods, and commerce.

18th century woman still worked themselves to death on a regular basis.  While most no longer worked in the fields (except poor Southern women), the domestic chores were actually harder, more repetitive, and endless.  In addition to regular housework, women bore children, nursed them, cared for them, made candles, bread, soap, made clothes, cooked, butchered, gardened, but the most hated domestic chore of the 18th century?  Spinning.  Imagine your life without cloth.  Every thread of every cloth garment especially in America had to be 'spun' from usually wool or flax.  A woman who spent a day 'spinning' could easily walk 20 miles doing the chore.  Imported pre-made cloth was an instant success.  Duh.

The most dominate factor in a colonial woman's life was child bearing.  The average woman married before the age of 20 and had seven children.  The most important woman in any colonial community was a midwife.  A skillful midwife could easily mean the difference between life and death for a woman.  Even so, in the 1700's roughly 20% of New England women died in childbirth with that figure higher in the South.  Gail Collins comments, "In an era when masculine bravery was celebrated, it was actually the women who stared down death on a regular basis."

How colonial women handled their menstruation  is still a mystery.  Talking about this was a huge colonial taboo.  We know women didn't wear underpants, and cloth was such a premium, it's possible they either used moss like the Indians to catch their monthly flow, or just cleaned up as the day progressed.  Colonial women didn't menstruate as frequently as modern women due to almost constant pregnancy, nursing, and poor diets. Still, what mess!

18th century, upper class women are being transformed from the hard working, fecund partners to slender, pretty gentlewoman.  I loved this poem by an 18th century physician:  "They braced my aunt against a board to make her straight and tall.  They laced her up, starved her down, to make her light and small.

Clothing in the 1700s became more and more restrictive among upper class women:  Corsets, hoops, many layers of clothes, wood high heel shoes mounted on "patterns" (wooden or metal blocks to keep the shoes out of the mud).  Wearing patterns on your shoes became tantamount to walking on stilts.  In addition, for outdoor wear there were gloves and masks or veils over the face.

An interesting point the author makes:  American society is sending two messages to women in the 1700s:  Marry, and be a super efficient household manager, and do it without your husband ever noticing that you are working constantly.  However, to prepare for this life of labor upper class young women lead a life of refined restricted leisure almost to the point of immobility.  The late 18th century female ideal was fragile, fair, not very bright, and certainly not interested in public affairs.  Then, as always, comes a war (The Revolutionary War) and women have to be part of the struggle or the colonies won't win.  All the 'rules' are suddenly suspended.  As men went off to fight, survival of the family is dependent on these 'not very bright' women taking over farms, businesses, and learning how to make do as the flow of pre-manufactured goods ceases.  

As always, American women rise to the occasion, and at the cessation of hostilities, their gains in personal freedom and economic power wither away.  

Next time:  The 19th century.  

I know some of you just suffer through my American history lectures, but this is my blog and American history is something I've intensely interested in.  Buck up.....There are only two more centuries to go.

Will You Please Take a Short Survey

Dear Readers,

We have the opportunity to give our input to a consulting class at the Yale School of Business.  In other words, we need to help Sarah Lynn with some homework.  I'm being facetious (which she won't appreciate).  

She's actually involved in a consulting project for a non-profit group called Institute for Senior Living Education.  The Yalies are trying to help this group figure out how to reach family caregivers who are in the senior age group.  Sarah and her classmates have designed an on-line survey to show how these seniors seek out care giving information, as well as their on-line habits.  

It's not a very long survey, and I'm excited that I have enough readers to be asked to help.  It will be fun, and you're not going to wind up on anybody's email list.  If you know somebody who would be willing to help with the survey, particularly people who are middle aged and above, please forward the blog to them.  The more people who take the survey, the better it is for Sarah.      

Here's the link:

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6QKqX0RqdTzNprv     

FINALLY! A fun day.

Drake and I celebrate our wedding anniversary each April.  The celebration has always been dictated by time and money.  The anniversary zenith resulted in blogs for 30 days in a row during the celebration of our 40th touring New York City.  Not only was I exhausted at the end of that anniversary party, but so were my readers. This year, our 42nd, is memorable because we were so ready to have some fun, fun, fun.  The upcoming new marriage preparation stuff is non-stop and unrelenting.  We needed some time off.  I designed a date day for our anniversary commemoration with activities near and dear to each of our hearts.  We played black jack, one of Drake's fav things, and we won over $60.  We also went out for a nice dinner at the Salt Cellar, a restaurant specializing in fresh seafood flown into the desert from all over the United States.

The highlight of the day, in my opinion, was our trip to the Musical Instruments Museum.  I've known about this place for a couple of years, but considering the level of culture in this town, I couldn't imagine it would be that special of a place.  WOW!  Was I wrong.  This was an amazing museum on every level.  First, we were blown away by the beautiful building.

 I haven't been so impressed by a museum building since the Modern Museum in Fort Worth.  The Phoenix MIM building is constructed of offset sand stone slabs with inspired desert landscaping. 

Here's how they used the first floor atrium space that divides two sections of the museum.  I'm standing at a rail on the second floor overlooking the atrium, and there's the hallway on the other side of the actual over sized hanging instruments.

Inside this museum the staging, imagination and organization of the exhibits just kept on coming.  Upon entering the museum, the first thing you do is pick up a headphone set that is tuned via GPS signal to hundreds of flat screen televisions scattered throughout the museum.  You don't have to 'punch' anything or look for numbers.  A definite step up in the interactive museum.
This museum is organized by continent and then by countries within each continent.  As you pass by "Tibet", for instance, you see actual instruments while your headset keys into the TV in the midst of the instruments.  The video allows you to hear the instruments you're seeing being played.  Everything is airy, spacious and beautifully presented. By starting at the oldest human inhabited continent (Africa) and progressing around the world, you can see the progression of musical instruments, since music and the instruments expressing it, are universal no matter where on Earth you turn.  Here's an example; this is India:

  If that isn't fascinating enough, there are installations scattered throughout the museum of what we in the teacher biz call "how to's".  The one Drake liked best was "How to Make a Steinway Grand Piano".  This picture shows half of this exhibit.

After you finish looking at all the continents and countries, there were three additional exhibits.  The open air one that kicks off the museum is simply called 'Guitars', and that's what it was - all types, sizes of guitars from all over the world. 

The red one on the wall was my favorite in this exhibit.  Here it is close up.   Can you see the stylized map of the United States?

The second of the three additional exhibits was what I would term "famous music people and their stuff'.  Oh, there was Elvis, of course, with a couple of his jump suits exhibited, and there was Taylor Swift's dresses and instruments and boots as well as  Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" grammy, but the unexpected was the Steinway Piano Company's first piano - made in their kitchen in 1838 - a little side project of a cabinet making family in Germany.

The third and final exhibition was of mechanical musical instruments - music boxes, calliopes, the original disc players (wooden ones not CD's that revolved in players - the player piano is one of these), and automatons - mechanical figures that move in time to mechanical music.  This was mildly interesting perhaps my interest being influenced by my pain of being on my feet on concrete for over three hours.

This museum was so stunning in every aspect; I'm sure this won't be our last visit, and I've very eager to sample one of their concerts in the attached concert hall.  As always with my travel blogs, if you want to see ALL the pix, follow the link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2013MusicalInstrumentsMuseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCMqri8ydtMmvoQE